It's hard to pick a favorite Cloris Leachman performance. Wacky Phyllis in the Mary Tyler Moore Show? The lonely housewife in The Last Picture Show? Both excellent and career-making on their own. Indeed her Last Picture Show role won her an Academy Award. But we keep coming back to Frau Blücher, the housekeeper in Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein who is so creepy horses shiver at her name.
Comedy is hard, but Leachman, who we lost this week at the age of 94, was so skilled an actress and comic that she could crack us up just as easily as she could move us by showing us a character's heart. And she kept doing both until the end. In 2019, she had a recurring role on the revival of the series Mad About You, and last year she had several films in production. When she was 82, she was the oldest contestant to take part in Dancing With the Stars.
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